I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself as I suspect Iíll be active on these forums in the future. Although these forums are a bit slow there is a lot of good information here and I have a lot of respect for Ukvikingís and Diarmidís opinions (harsh as they sometimes are).

About me: Iíve been an IT manager for 15 years (most of my working career) and working in ITIL environments since 2001 for an extremely large corporation supporting a US Government customer (Iím intentionally being vague here). Iím only ITIL foundations certified (versions 2 and 3), but my current employer is paying for the expert training / exams so I expect to have that under my belt this year. Additionally Iím certified in Business Continuity, Project Management, and Six Sigma (green belt). I have read all 5 ITIL v3 books (although some admittedly Iíve skimmed thru) and will reread them as time and opportunity present themselves.

Professionally in the ITIL world I have been a major contributor for the creation of the ITSC component document, Business Impact Analysisí for most ITIL process areas, and a few dozen Continuity Plans but my current position (with another US Government customer) requires me to lead an ďITIL Integration ProjectĒ and align their current way of service management with ITIL good practices. For various reasons weíve decided to start with Service Transition (Configuration Management) followed by Service Operation, Service Design, Service Strategy, and finishing with Continual Service Improvement. I understand this is not the textbook way to implement a service management environment, but due to various constraints and environmental factors it is what it is.

Interestingly enough they do not have formal SLA / OLAs or even meaningful metrics from what Iíve been able to gather. Therefore my approach (which is more project management / six sigma related) is to conduct 2 month long workshops in each process area to determine requirements using various tools and techniques including: SIPOC, Kano Models, Ishikawa Diagrams, Requirements Traceability Matrix, and Quality Function Deployment / House of Quality. We expect to narrow the list of requirements to those offering the most business value while meeting ITIL maturity recommendations allowing the process to support its customers well. From these requirements we will mock up some SLA / OLA (where appropriate) in lieu of a formal process done by Service Level Management (which wonít be developed for at least a year). These workshops will be facilitated by myself, with participation from 2 of my team members and 3 people designated by the process owner.

Following the requirements workshop, with approval from sponsor / senior leadership and our assistance, the process owner and their 3 designated members will begin the execution phase of the project: Creating the process plan, databases (if applicable), tool design / integration, metrics baselining. From a project standpoint we will monitor the operations of the process for 1 month, making tweaks as necessary before closing out that phase of the overall project. End to end we expect to kick off a new process area every 2 months or so and have the entire framework in place in 3 years, with CSI working with process owners on the suggestions / requirements that did not make it into the initial project.

So, given the information that Iíve provided and the fact that we are scheduled to start our first requirements workshop next week, does my approach soundÖ well sound?

Additionally if anyone in the community has recommendation on good ITIL related books (not part of the library) please let me know. I already have: Owning ITIL, Implementing ITIL Configuration Management, Service Desk Best Practice Handbook, Implementing ITIL Change and Release Management, and The ITIL ExperienceÖ all purchased thru Amazon. Some of these books Iíve finished, some I havenít.

Any thoughts on a quality online ITIL expert certification center? Looking to take courses after work as time permits followed preferably by a webcam proctored exams. Iíve done the standard Google search but aside from pricing there isnít really any way to grade the quality of their services.

I would prefer a US based company for ease of payment, but AU / UK would probably work as well.

Your approach sounds very thorough, and, unusually, you are allocating enough time! You may find that as the project gets established, some areas take on their own momentum, and you may be able to "speed up".
The only other area that I think you need to spend more time on is the cultural change element.Attitude, Behaviour Culture. The ABC of ICT book is good.
Contact me directly for online Intermediate courses_________________Liz Gallacher,
ITIL EXPERT
Accredited ITIL and ISO/IEC20000 Trainer and Consultant - Freelance

WRT People, I do understand the importance; We had our official project kick off this week and many slides were dedicated to the need for Cultural Transformation. Lucky for us management is on board and fully supports us. We quoted people as the single largest factor in project successÖ In a few words or less, our strategy for handling the Cultural challenges is to have different teams of multidisciplinary subject matter experts from the organization own the requirements gathering and design of processes / tools. Additionally we have many formal and informal communication models from newsletters to bulletin boards like this one. We have also dedicated a ďITIL War RoomĒ for people to stop by and participate in the discussion. Each process will undergo a formal kickoff attended by many. Finally we are trying to develop training for the groups that will own the processes that are specific to the what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what is in it for them.
Of course I donít claim to have all the answers, 90% of being smart is knowing what you are dumb at.

I agree with ChasingSleep - 90 percent of your problems all stem from your people:

- Senior leadership - supporting or committed? Our senior leadership here 'supports' our ITIL efforts, but are no where near as 'committed' as we would have liked - and while we have made some significant progress, our progress would have been much better if we would have had active commitment from our management/leadership. While they are not expected to be the expert (that's your job), they should be committed enough to be on the executive team, getting regular updates from you and your teams as the project moves forward.

- Your customer: Are they committed? or will they "head for the hills" at the first sign of trouble? A signed project charter by your company leadership, your customer, and chief stakeholders outlining roles and responsibilities would be a good indicator that people are real serious about this effort.

- Your budget: At some point a serious enterprise-wide ITIL effort will require you invest in the proper ITSM tools. The good ones are all very expensive and require a considerable investment. Is your company/customer willing to invest? We could not get our customer to invest any serious dollars into ITIL tools. As a result, the only progress that we have been able to make is where we have been able to take knowledgable ITIL experts and programmers "out of hide" and develop our own custom tools. It has been a time consuming, and very cumbersome process, but the only alternative was to do nothing, which would not have allowed our effort to move forward.

- I thing you are right on track with the ITIL education program and requirements definition. As ITIL will require a cultural transition, you can't even hope to begin to move forward unless everyone in the organization speaks the same language. I have been involved in discussions on ITIL, and when people who do not understand the ITIL taxonomy try to join the conversation, what you often end up with is a "deer in the headlight" look. This is especially true of your executive staff.

- Seriously consider trying to extend your foundational ITIL training beyond the IT staff. I can't tell you the number of times I have been conducting training, only to hear "This is great stuff! Do people on our operational side understand this?" ITIL, esp v3 is not only about ITSM, but it's about strategically aligning IT with the operational side of the organization. That means that other executives in the organization have to understand what you are trying to do. It's hard to focus in on that, but it's essential and requires that you take some time to develop an executive-level overview to answer the "what's in it for me?" question to those busy leaders and managers on the operational side of the organization. If not, it will make your implementation efforts harder.

These are just some thoughts from someone who has "been there, done that, and has gotten the bloody T-shirt", to move the conversation along._________________Dave Martin
ITIL v3 Expert
Ph.D (C), Information Technology